May fall down on us and hurt horribly.
A different light was come to Gabrielle. As she spoke these words, a “pale fire” descended upon her, shriveling the weed, giving luxuriance to the flower. A miracle alone could have revealed to her the truth, and if it was not a miracle, it was the light from her own tragedy. She had failed, in marrying Bartholow, to find the being she sought. Likewise Penn-Raven had disappointed her. But she loved her husband for the light that had come to him. The Light was greater than herself. Wherefore of Bartholow she thought,
If my life would save him,
And make him happy till he died in peace,
I’m not so sure he mightn’t have it.
No one had known the flower that grew within the weed. No one had cared to search beyond a certain libidinous examination. She, however, was aware. The command was come that she save Bartholow. She accepted. With her determination made she resisted two trying interviews with Penn-Raven and her husband, who successively tried to wound her sensitivity more deeply. The Raven groaned about his tragedies and disillusions, while Gabrielle was going out to die. There was nothing more in life for her than an austere duty, implacable and dark.
Where the Light falls, death falls;
And in the darkness comes the Light.
But a cruel farewell to her husband and the faces were for her no more. This woman, greater in every way than Vivian or Guinevere, Gabrielle, the one complete and incisive expression of a poet’s ideal, the crowning achievement to a brilliant tier of characters, Gabrielle who stepped above the broken ruins of her life to save a weak man, this Gabrielle crept stilly from the house and, before descending, paused a moment in the night.
Now she could see the moon and stars again